For 58 seasons, through wars, impeachments and the corporate dismantling of the network news business around it, “60 Minutes” remained America’s highest-rated newsmagazine. Viewership of the CBS News program was up 9% during the 2025-2026 season and generated more than 2.5 billion social-media video views, according to the network. Yet in a bizarre case of fixing something that does not need fixing, the program became the one CBS property executives chose to radically remake.
David Ellison, the network’s new owner, appears determined to test whether the rare commercial-news institution that persuaded millions of Americans to spend an hour with investigative reporting can survive the removal of the very people who made it matter. In barely a year, under the ownership of Ellison’s Skydance and the editorial stewardship of Bari Weiss, that legacy has been stripped down, gutted and reassembled as an instrument of political appeasement. By sacrificing seasoned investigative reporters and filling the vacuum with anti-woke contrarians, Ellison and Weiss have defanged a national treasure.
